System information

possible audio signal available. Without a source of this caliber there is no way to drive one's system to the
fullest. The source material can't get better than the weakest link in the chain. It just makes sense to start
with the best signal one can afford.
Listening to Doug MacLeod's There's A Time at 24/176.4 from the Aurender W20 enables one to hear this
recording to the fullest. The recording space, air around Doug's voice and guitar, and sense of realism that
can be heard in this wonderfully engineered album are astounding. I recently downloaded Sara Bareilles'
albumBrave Enough - Live at the Variety Playhouse at 24 bit / 96 kHz. I copied it to the W20, queued it up,
and let it play on repeat. The entire album sounds terrific sourced form the W20. The low level detail audible
when listening to the album in the background is stellar. The sound quality is incapable of inducing fatigue. I
also listened to this album at concert levels and enjoyed every minute. Sara's cover of Goodbye Yellow Brick
Road not only sounds superb but the way she make it her own is just enough twist to get lost in the song
without thinking about Elton John (video). Music lovers and high end audio aficionados long to hear exactly
what's on a recording without their equipment editorializing. The Aurender W20 delivers listeners the best
shot at this true reproduction.
Comparing the W20 to a CAPS v3 Carbon server revealed the sonic limitations of an off the shelf computer
music server. Even though the CAPS v3 Carbon server is completely powered from LiFePO4 batteries it
doesn't deliver the music signal to the rest of the audio chain as well as the Aurender W20. The CAPS server
sounded like it was adding digital artifacts and giving a false sense of clarity and detail compared to the W20.
This type of sound can lead listeners to conclude the CAPSserver offers more detail or enables one to hear
more of his music than the W20. However, I caution against jumping to such a conclusion. Hearing things
that one has never heard before can be a fantastic experience, as long as those things are in the recording.
Compared to other servers I've used over the last several years, not including the W20, the CAPS v3 sounded
fantastic and much better for the most part. Now that I've lived with the W20 for an extended period of time
I've finally found a server that I cannot top with my own build or with any other server I've yet heard. There
is a tendency to favor that which one builds himself because there is an intimate level of knowledge about
such a server, or any other component for that matter. We often look at other servers without knowing what
has been done to them and assume there must be a few items that could be removed or changed for better
sound quality. This way of thinking just doesn't hold water. In addition to sonic superiority the W20 is
superior in every way related to ease of use. The server will run "forever" without user intervention. There is
no way to even connect a keyboard, monitor, or mouse to the W20. It's not that kind of component. There's
no need for a remote control application like Splashtop, Microsoft Remote Desktop, VNC, etc... The W20 is
controlled by the Aurender iPad application, that's it.
Conclusion
The Aurender W20 is a purpose built race car that does one thing very well, it plays music
that sounds better than any server I've ever used. When connected to great components the
W20 enables one to hear into the music, with a low noise floor and clean signal, like nothing
else. The flagship W20 is an engineering based marvel not dependent on high end hocus-
pocus to turn heads and enthrall the ears. The server's maintenance free battery powered,
and in-house designed, audio board in addition to intense isolation, both electrical and
physical, are far beyond any server I've used to date. The Aurender W20 makes CAPS servers look like
children's toys with inferior sound. It's not possible to compete with the W20 using an off the shelf computer
or individual computer components cherry picked from around the world. The Aurender team has designed
and built, from the ground up, the W20 too such a standard, hobbyists can only dream about duplicating its
form and function. Whether the listener connects it to a full dCS externally clocked stack or an
Alpha DAC via AES or an EMM Labs DAC2X via USB the Aurender W20 will provide listeners the best chance
of hearing everything on a recording without editorializing. The Aurender W20 has displaced theCAPS v3
Carbon server in my system and is without a doubt the best music server I've used to date.